Mount Kenya University has started the rollout of a welfare programme aimed at tackling social challenges faced by students that usually result in them dropping out of school.
Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3 Plus) project has the overall goal of improving the wellbeing of students and lowering social ills.
It also seeks to ensure that young people in higher and tertiary education institutions realise positive health, education and gender equality outcomes.
The programme is backed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
The O3 Plus will first be implemented at MKU’s Thika campus and later rolled out to other campuses.
“I wish to remind all our students that you are the future of our society. The position you hold in society is crucial,” MKU pro-chancellor Dr Vincent Gaitho said.
He spoke during the launch of the programme at the MKU's Mwai Kibaki Convention Centre.
Gaitho said society has a role to empower young people and prepare them for leadership roles in the coming years.
“Ten years from now, you will be serving as medical doctors, teachers, bank managers, chief executive officers to various organisations and renowned business persons. It is the priority of society to ensure that you receive full training and get effectively empowered to take up these roles in the future,” he said.
Gaitho said many social ills are propagated through social media, exposing young people to drug abuse and violence.
“We have witnessed the lives of some of the young, brilliant and promising minds ruined, destroyed or even lost and education curtailed as a result of these challenges,” Gaitho said.
“As academicians, mentors, parents and partners in institutions of higher learning, we are charged with the onerous responsibility of ensuring that you enjoy your lives to the fullest without any health hazards and dangers."
He said they can no longer keep silent, watching young people being destroyed by behaviours and practices that can be changed, modified or even stopped.
The project is expected to help the university in counselling young people and enable them to safely transit to responsible adulthood.
Gaitho said there are plans to roll out the programme to other MKU campuses in Kenya and the region.
“The Unesco office has promised that, upon successful implementation of this project at the Thika Main campus, it will soon be scaled up to other campuses and universities in Kenya and even to other universities in the entire Eastern Africa region,” he said.
Unesco is implementing the O3 project in other countries across sub-Saharan Africa including Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Edited by A.N
